Thriller Short Story – The Contract
Thriller Short Story – The Contract
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Dear Readers,
The excerpt you are about to read was found in an abandoned car. The tow truck driver was a friend of mine and had found loose papers thrown about in the back seat of the car, and thought I would be interested in reading them. The writing was that of an elderly man. Upon reading, I feel eerily connected, as if I need to share this story with the world. I have made no changes or revisions of any kind. Read at your own risk.
When I signed my name in blood that night, not long ago, I knew what would happen. I dare not speak upon it except in silence through pen and paper.
He had looked at me with dark eyes…those dark eyes. They seemed to reach into my being and steal my soul, leaving my shell so cold and void. I remember the physical changes. I could never seem to warm my body, my blood is chilled, like a fine wine. My brain has slowed, but my eighty year old step became much faster.
The ties that once bound me from freedom released me, one by one. The first was my son, a pathetic drunkard. He died surprisingly fast. They called it alcoholism. The next to go was my beautiful daughter tortured for nearly forty years by the grasp of drugs. Tears of joy I cried for her, only her, as I stood over her coffin. Soon after, my beloved Mary finally died, her evil heart worn from a lifetime of anger. That bit*h was finally gone, along with every so-called fake friend we ever claimed to have had. Some questioned the deaths, while others felt pity and did not how to react, so they simply disappeared. No one questioned the money.
I moved into a fine neighborhood, one I could not have imagined a year before. It was just I and the two inherited dogs, each dying six months apart until I was completely freed from my past.
A woman had been brought into my realm “As a reminder of your past,” he would later say, standing over my hospital bed. My face swollen, my jaw wired shut, my old, frail body at his mercy. He had looked at me with dark eyes…those dark eyes.
The woman had been a gift. She had all the characteristics of those who were killed, those I had been freed from. That woman was to remind me of my loyalty to my contract and to the man with the dark eyes.
“You will be rewarded,” he had said. A new woman would come into my life soon, a very beautiful woman with dark hair and a daughter. I was to take her in and love her. What could an old, worn man like me do with such a woman? He looked at me, his mouth slowly drawing up into a snare…or was it a smile? His teeth showing yellowed stained filth. “Destroy her,” he had said.
As promised, the woman arrived with her child and all was well. Then it began. I loved her so much, too much, though never once touching her. I watched the woman filled with curiosity struggle with her new life, with her new money. Blood money. From my bedroom window I would watch her sneak back into the house very late, night after night and I began to hate her as I hated the others. And so she began to drink. She began to get angry. She began to do drugs. She wanted to leave me. I did nothing.
The woman, drunk, smelling of sex and perfume, stumbled into my home one night. That hot summer night. And then he came, the man with the dark eyes…those dark eyes. Paralysed in fear, standing in the doorway of the woman’s bedroom, I watched him.
Even now on paper, I do not have the courage to bring to life what my tired eyes had witnessed. She had made no noise, there was no mess. The man with the dark eyes stood up from her bedside, looked at me fiercely, and heaved a sound indescribable, vibrating every inch of my being. A demonic voice of a thousand souls speaking in synchronic subhuman misery screamed, “Abaddon!” The house shook with fury and wind. His eyes were huge, his mouth became monstrously large, his face grey, almost glowing in the darkness. I hid my eyes with my arm and then it was over. I slowly lowered my arm and looked toward the bed, but he was gone. So was she.
I ran into the little girl’s room. She was sleeping so soundly, as if nothing had happened at all. I will drive her to her grandmother’s house tomorrow. I feel as if we are in danger, as if I did not destroy the woman enough to fulfill my contract. I feel as if the man with the dark eyes will come soon for her, Abaddon. What have I done? The contract I had written with the blood of my wrist on virgin parchment was meant for freedom and wealth. I am afraid I cannot take this back. So be it. If these notes are to be found without me, please publish somehow as to warn the world there is evil waiting for you, watching you with dark eyes…those dark eyes.
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~Jasmine DeGrado
